Agenda

The purpose of this meeting is to facilitate cooperation and coordination among the Utah State Office of Education (USOE), districts and charter schools to further the efficient, accurate and timely exchange of school performance data. This agenda and all the information presented during data meetings will be available on the USOE Information Technology website.

New classification of ALS students and relation of UALPA to IPT; processing changes.

Computer Services ELL/UALPA 2007-08 Clearinghouse Specifications.

ELL Columns in the Clearinghouse

Limited English

ELL Native Language

ELL Parent Language

ELL Instruction Type

ELL Exit Date

Direct From Clearinghouse: Limited English: (Col 120 ; required all updates for ELL students) This code identifies the student’s level of proficiency in academic English based.

Code/Meaning

Y = Student is ELL. This includes ELL levels: P (pre-emergent), E (emergent), and I (intermediate).

O = Opted out of the ELL program

A = Advanced – has scored at the A level on the UALPA and scored at the proficient level on the appropriate grade level English language arts CRT. (formerly IPT code D);

F = Fluent – LEAs must have added an exit date (formerly IPT code E)

N = Tested and deemed not ELL

Blank/Space = Not tested – not ELL

If not blank here (any of the other valid values): Fields LEP NATIVE and LEP PARENT languages must be present

If ‘Y’ here: Field LEP INSTRUCTION TYPE must be present

If ‘F’ here: Field LEP EXIT DATE must have a valid date.

If ‘O’ here: Other LEP fields may be submitted but are not required

Note 1: Students who are ‘Y’ will be counted as “limited English proficient” (LEP) in accountability reporting.

Note 2: Students who are ‘F’ need to have that designation continued on his/her S1 record for 2 years beyond the school year in which he/she was initially submitted as a former LEP student.

For the fall and winter Clearinghouse submissions.

No ELL column values will be used by the USOE and there will be no edits on this field.

Beginning with the end-of-year (July 15, 2008) Clearinghouse.

All these columns will be required and will be edited.

For subsequent October and December Clearinghouse files.

These columns will be required and will be edited. The LEAs are instructed to update them with the most recent data available for each student.

Pre-print and All-student File Requirements

Starting April 1, 2008 ELL codes will be validated and stored by USOE. If a file containing an invalid code is not validated by the Pre-Print Validation application, an error will be generated. A file containing an invalid code will not be accepted by the Assessment (Pre-Print) website. The same codes as those used for the Clearinghouse will be used.

Determining ELL Status and Levels for Disaggregations; the two year question.

SIS Data Suggestions

The local SIS system should have a column in some record of some table in its student database that keeps the ELL Level of the student as defined in the Clearinghouse specification. That is Y, A, F, N, O, or space. A column for these values should already exist in some SIS table.

There should also be a field to indicate which level (high or low) of the appropriate grade span (K, 1-2, 3-6, 7-8, 9-12) of UALPA test the student is to take. Note the grade span can be determined by the grade level of the student already indicated by some existing SIS column. Note that K only has one test level.

The grade level and level of the UALPA within the grade span are needed to place the student in the appropriate pre-print file.

H.B. 215 S1 "School Reporting Amendments" - For grades seven through twelve, average class size shall be calculated for core language arts, mathematics, and science courses by dividing membership on October 1 in core language arts, mathematics, or science course classes by the number of classes for the corresponding course. This is the same as is currently used to produce secondary class size statistics for U-PASS school performance reports.

We should include only those courses which meet all three of the following criteria:

06 (Lang), 07 (Math), or 08 (Sci) in the first two places of assignment code

In the July 12 DWG meeting it was decided to recommend that HB 207’s definition of “Absence” or “absent” be placed into board rule as an addition to the current definition of "Truant"; See: R277-419-3B (3). The reason is that the legislature did not intend that “Absence” or “absent” apply to attendance in the context of daily attendance counts taken for accountability reporting or possibly funding formulas. Instead it was apparently intended to define under what conditions to count a student as truant for the day. This may only apply to students 12 years (7th grade or above) or older.

Need to have good student attributes (e.g. ethnicity, gender and LEP flag) in all-students files for all tests in case disaggregation reporting needs to be done prior to the next Clearinghouse submission.

All-students files need all students enrolled at any point in the LEA's testing window, not just those at some point in time in the testing window.

LEAs must use numeric 9 character and 2 character fields in their pre-print files as they see fit. Generally this is a course/section or teacher/period pair. LEAs should be consistent in how these fields are used in paper and pencil testing and CBT. In CBT the pre-print/all-student fields are used for both grouping of students for testing and reporting. In pencil and paper the pre-print is for distribution of answer documents but header sheet information, also the same 9 + 2 fields are used for report distribution.

These files will be refused by the USOE if alpha, etc. characters are used. Next year they may be opened to any type of character. They may contain the Cactus ID (teacher number) in place of a local teacher identifier. The first leading zero must be omitted if this is done since the field length is only 9 characters. This is optional; an LEA may choose to use its own numbering/coding/sorting scheme. No validation/editing will be done.

The CACTUS IDs in the course records of the Clearinghouse will be used for any linking of teachers to assessments.

Could/should a group of IT people together to work on a strategic vision for District-State technology interactions over the next 5 or so years? Topics such as the following could be addressed and a document constructed on where we’d like to be in these areas in the future:

Each YIC student shall participate in all phases of the Utah Performance Assessment System for Students.

YIC students’ U-PASS and AYP results are attributable for accountability to the school and LEA in which they, the student lives/resides when tested unless the student satisfies full academic year or FAY in another school and LEA (e.g. a YIC and the LEA in which the YIC resides) in which case the tests will be attributed to the school and LEA satisfying FAY. This rarely happens for YICs since YIC students are usually not in a YIC facility for a FAY.

YIC students are included in U-PASS and AYP reports for another school and LEA in even if they take the CRT while in the YIC facility and are FAY for the other school and LEA.

As is the case with any other mobile student the YIC student may have data reported from multiple schools, some YIC other not YIC.

The discussion focused on how to manage disciplinary incident data efficiently without duplication and also provide for necessary reports (Feds, State, UBI, local).

It was decided that for 2007-08 RICEP would still be the data format for LEAs to report data to the USOE via USU.

The group that met on October 12 will continue to investigate and plan for the eventual use of one system that would allow timely (daily) data at the LEAs involved with UBI as well as provide for any data needed for state, LEA, federal or UBI reporting.

Options concerning storing and reporting disciplinary incident data include: UBI (Utah Behavioral Initiative) systems (currently called Disciplinary Tracker and SWIS), RICEP (USU), Clearinghouse, USAFE? How would the use of one or more of these impact SISs?

3 p.m.

Others: Course and Core Codes, School Year and Day Type - Jennifer Lambert, Curriculum, Randy Raphael, Finance and Statistics

How are course codes produced and when?

What is the difference between course codes and core codes?

UEN can provide a file of core codes which includes the related course code for each core code.

What decision has been made about “student only” CACTUS course codes?

In CACTUS the schedule_year_type field has not been well maintained and although many schools are considered year round, they have not been recorded as such. This will not happen unless LEAs tell the USOE. The proposed structures of this field and the schedule_day_type field are described below.

Schedule Year Type

C = Conventional or Traditional

T = Trimester

Y = Year Round

Schedule Day Type

C = Conventional or Traditional

B = Block

M = Modified Block

Required for the first time in the October 2008 upload.

Note 1: Since the detailed definitions of these schedule types vary somewhat by LEA the USOE will not provide such definitions. Classification of schedule types should therefore reflect local usage.

Note 2: This data will be stored in the existing schedule_year_type and schedule_type_day fields of the school table of the Cactus database, and will be used by Accreditation (in determining appropriate criteria for accrediting a particular school), Assessment (in managing the logistics of statewide large scale assessment) and Career and Technical Education (in allocating vocational education funds).

Please direct questions about classification of individual schools or use of this field by the USOE, according to your area of concern, to:

Accreditation - Georgia Loutensock, (801) 538-7789

Assessment - Sarah Moore, (801) 538-7862

Career and Technical Education - Jeff McDonald, (801) 538-7657

3:30 p.m.

Informal Breakout

USOE Staff will be available one-one to address any unanswered questions.

4:30 p.m.

Meeting Adjourned

Thank you to everyone form making time in your busy schedules to participate in this meeting.